


Those Too Weak

by local_doom_void



Series: the Fine Art of Historical Revisionism [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Death Eaters, Dictatorship, Don't copy to another site, Eye Trauma, Gen, Hypocrisy, Politics, Torture, Voldemort Only Cares About Himself, Voldemort is Not Good, Voldemort is his own warning, gloating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 23:07:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20164120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void
Summary: He is the disgrace of the Inner Circle, but he alone reckons the tide that is coming to wash them all up and drag them to the depths of the ocean. Voldemort sits at the bottom of that ocean, a massive beast of a sea serpent, venomous and hissing and hungry for every part of their society.A story of the last days of the Malfoy family name.





	Those Too Weak

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so... I didn't write for the next Mi Ae chapter last night. Instead this came spilling out of my fingers, and when I polished it up this morning, I said "... huh. Pretty good."
> 
> Heed the tags as combined with the rating – I didn't pull a lot of punches with this. Voldemort is his own warning, or he should be.
> 
> Consider this a peek into the history of the world of _Mi Aedijekit_.
> 
> **Addendum**: This was written while listening to 'Panic Room' by Au/Ra on repeat.

The world that Lord Voldemort has created in his image is crisp and sharp. Definitions are nice and neat, lines are framed and drawn with precision. All know exactly where the lane of their station in life starts and ends – and what’s more, they know exactly what they can expect to happen to their self, should they step away from that lane.

Lucius Malfoy’s lane is obsolete. This has not been said to him aloud, nor communicated to him in any writing. But he feels the knowledge deep in his bones, in the part of him where his body boils with blood and magic. He can read it in the micro-expressions that flit across Voldemort’s face as their Lord sits quietly at the head of the chamber which once housed the Wizengamot, the topography of it reversed so that instead of the many seats of the Ancient and Noble houses looking down upon the central dias, now does the central dias look down upon the court that it has become. He can see the passing disinterest as Rowle argues with that upstart Matthews woman, his crow’s feet wrinkling his skin, for less funding for the schools which tutor mudbloods. For an end of the research into the testing of the source of magic and the relative power levels of witches and wizards – or perhaps of witches compared to wizards. Lucius has not paid attention to the specifics, for such things are self-evident, and it is not his wheelhouse anyway. He holds no stake in Rowle’s success or failure.

As he watches this debate, he sees Voldemort’s crimson eyes flash disinterestedly from Rowle to Matthews and back, and Lucius, from his similarly disinterested point of view, recognizes with kinship the total apathy in Voldemort’s eyes. And with that Lucius thinks, he feels, he knows – Voldemort already knows exactly what he is going to do, and this debate is nothing more than a farce and a waste of time.

Perhaps Matthews knows it too, Lucius thinks. She seems no more interested than either him or Voldemort, and a quick thought occurs to Lucius as Voldemort’s eyes flick once again to Matthews, and a wry quirk of the lip passes across the Dark Lord’s face like a ship in the night. Matthews knows what Voldemort’s decision is already. Which means, of course, that they must have spoken of this already. Matthews and Voldemort have spoken in private and determined exactly what they will be doing, and this debate is merely a formality, a play to entertain the doddering Rowle and the remainder of the old crowd.

Voldemort is not listening because he already knows the answer. Rowle’s arguments mean nothing.

So Voldemort has chosen Matthews. A mudblood, stolen away at the tender age of three though she is – but still a mudblood.

Lucius Malfoy sits back, and ponders on the nature of inevitability.

  


* * *

  


He always tells himself he could not have known. That he should be proud that his son hid such a thing from him, from Narcissa, from even Voldemort himself, for so many long years.

It does not make him feel better.

  


* * *

  


It was easy to give up the mansion. Though his forefathers may curse his name and drown his legacy in scorn, Lucius considers this loss to be no less difficult to bear than what he has already done to sully that place. He has gone down on hands and knees in his own library for the terror of being cruciated. He has splattered his own blood across the floo greeting hall while sheltering from Voldemort’s displeasure. He has allowed Bellatrix Lestrange to run wild and smash his glassware – he has given up his son and his wife, and with them, the continuation of the Malfoy name, to the force of nature that is Voldemort’s wrath. All in order to change the world back from what it had become – all in order to preserve some semblance of order, even if his family was destroyed in that crusade.

So with his wife and son dead and his glassware smashed and his life held hostage within his own home, Lucius does not see the problem with allowing Voldemort to rearrange the books in the library into an order that is – apparently – more to Voldemort’s liking. He does not say a word when Voldemort expands the library into the room next to the current one, adding books upon books upon books that Lucius knows must come from Voldemort’s private collection (and where had he been keeping those all this time?) He does not bother to try and complain when Voldemort removes the portraits of his grandfather and his other ancestors and replaces them with tapestries, or with images of nature and ancient ruins that do not have people in them and do not speak at all.

He does wonder why Voldemort has no portraits. He wonders why a man who has walked with bare feet through a puddle of blood and left red footprints across Lucius’ sitting room carpet would enjoy the triteness of a painting of the seaside at dusk. He wonders, but he does not really believe he’ll ever know.

Voldemort allows him to continue living in the house, though he is relegated to a single, small side wing. He is not required to enter Voldemort’s part of the manor unless he is to report individually, and Voldemort, strangely, tends to keep his work at the Government building these days. Lucius does not like to venture into the rest of the manor, therefore, when he has no need to. He has no desire to know what Voldemort does with his spare time.

There are no more peacocks wandering the grounds. They vanished at some point years ago – Lucius never asked.

  


* * *

  


Once Lucius has noticed one thing, he notices another.

Matthews is but a symptom of the disease – a single blotch on a face covered with dragon pox. After that session of the court, Lucius notices other things which would worry him if he were not already so tired. Macnair was cruciated and demoted to nothing much more than an errand boy after trying to get in a few beheadings that were not strictly documented. Rookwood still practically lives in the Department of Mysteries, but Lucius has not for years seen a research report assigned to him by anyone but other members of the old crowd. When he asks Rookwood about this, Rookwood says that the Dark Lord does not request anything specific – that Rookwood is allowed to exercise his judgement. His chest puffs out, but Lucius remembers the pile of stamped documents that he saw in Voldemort’s arms during an unfortunate near-encounter on the grounds last month, and he wonders how Rookwood has overlooked so much of what his underlings are doing. Yaxley has retired to be with his family as he grows older, and somehow his position has not been replaced by any single person. He was simply there one day – and the next, the office was gone and repartitioned into something swarming with clerks in a dark uniform that Lucius had once considered to be reserved only for the lower level Death Eater security guards.

Lucius looks into Matthews – only gently, for he knows this is not technically his lane, and he knows what might await him if he is discovered. Voldemort does not come into that little side apartment where Lucius tries to preserve some illusion of ignorance, but Lucius has no doubt that the Dark Lord can do so if he ever feels the need. Lucius would rather he not feel that need.

Matthews was taken at age three from muggle parents. Matthews was placed with a rather simple tailor’s family living in one of the alleys off of Diagon and maintaining a quaint little shop for the masses. Matthews did not go to Hogwarts, but attended a group school established for mudbloods and half-bloods taken from the muggle world, half-bloods without parents to earn for them the right to attend Hogwarts. Some purebloods, too – those whose parents or ancestors had shamed their family by fighting the Dark Lord, and so had lost the privilege of Hogwarts.

(Sometimes, Lucius feels viciously pleased that the Weasleys are amongst them. At other times, he hates and envies Arthur and Molly Weasley, diminished and old and dismayed though they must be by history, for they have living children and grandchildren and godchildren.)

There is no reason why this trajectory should have Matthews allowed to argue in the council chamber. It does not explain why Matthews was consulted by Voldemort on decisions, concepts finalized without a word to anybody else.

  


* * *

  


Once, Lucius could look upon nearly any document within the Ministry. Cornelius Fudge would bend over backwards to accomodate Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, and Lucius had come to consider this his due.

Cornelius Fudge is dead, now – Voldemort had personally executed him, along with Dolores Umbridge, in the middle of Diagon Alley, for what crime Lucius did not know. Voldemort had never specified, and none of the silent crowd had asked.

A child had screeched with excitement as the green light flashed, oblivious to the true meaning of the events they witnessed. Lucius had for a feverish moment wondered if this was not better, in the end.

Lord Voldemort’s rule is nothing like Cornelius Fudge, or even like Rufus Scrimgeour. Under Fudge, any document was fair game. Under Scrimgeour, so long as you remained unobserved, any document was fair game.

Under Lord Voldemort, nothing is fair game.

There is a list, now, of every witch and wizard in Britain. Every archives room inside the Ministry is closed, now, to all but one or two or a few clerks and librarians and archivists who have permission to touch the documents. These people have lists of who is allowed to read things from the room for which they are responsible. If you are on the list, you are on the list. If you are not on the list, you cannot look.

He would not dare to force the issue. An older auror, almost old enough to remember a time before any of Voldemort’s wars, had forgotten, or perhaps not believed, and pushed past the archivists with spells and force. It was years ago, now, but Lucius was there that day. He still recalls the man’s pained screams as he was tortured in the foyer, departments assembled and staring, the crowd overcome as one by a nervous fidgeting of feet and wringing of hands.

Lucius finds he is not on the lists he wants to look at, and he wonders if any of his peers are on there at all.

  


* * *

  


Lucius intends to visit the school which Matthews attended, to request a tour. It would be innocent enough, he thinks, and yet he never manages to go.

  


* * *

  


The proclamation is, at first, innocuous. Lucius almost does not bother with it, for he has nothing to do to comply. He has already complied – been forced to comply, been divested of his family heritage completely and utterly. His copies of the Malfoy family grimoires are copies, not originals, and though he feels empty when he thinks this, he holds no hope that Voldemort has not devoured them and crammed every secret spell into whatever twisted mind sits behind those red eyes.

Yet then he remembers, as if dreaming, that he is still unique in his fall. He is the disgrace of the inner circle, but he alone reckons the tide that is coming to wash them all up and drag them to the depths of the ocean. Voldemort sits at the bottom of that ocean, a massive beast of a sea serpent, venomous and hissing and hungry for every part of their society.

The others, now, may not find it so hard to laugh at him. It’s cold comfort when he is already drowning.

  


* * *

  


Avery tries to reject the proclamation. As does Rowle, as do most of them. Only Nott and Greengrass sit back quietly, and Lucius gazes at them until they notice him and meet his eyes. He does not often talk to anyone – he is not even aware if they know the truth of who lives in what parts of his ancestral manor. But he dips his head to them and presses his hand to his heart in the ancient gesture of silent sorrow, as if at a funeral.

He can see when they grasp it, and their shock. Rowle is writhing at the foot of the throne, voice cracking and fingers scraping bloody streaks onto the marble floor. Avery is quivering, retreating – Voldemort’s eyes are glowing red, his lips twisted from his usual chiseled, cheekbone-heavy aloofness into a scowl of bared teeth and animal violence.

Rowle’s back arches, Voldemort’s wand lifts, and Rowle vomits pitifully. The remnants of the Wizengamot look on in shock.

“How disgusting,” Voldemort sneers lowly.

  


* * *

  


“We should do something,” Avery says softly, gently, at the strange little tea gatherings they always seem to have when nobody knows how to go on. “We have to do something.”

Rowle only whimpers and shudders like a beaten dog.

Ancient family books and grimoires, long kept secret and safe, start flowing to the Government building. They disappear, Rookwood finds, into the Department of Mysteries – but on the day he first notices this, he tells how Voldemort appeared in his office with a trio of masked Death Eaters, who did not even seem to care about the nature of the Inner Circle, and ever-so-genteelly had Rookwood evicted.

Somehow, Rookwood’s memories have been revoked, as well. He can recall nothing of any project he has ever worked on, but nor can he recall Voldemort doing anything to him in the first place.

  


* * *

  


Lucius does the unthinkable and lifts a stray file from a personnel clerk’s desk when nobody is looking. At least, he thinks nobody is looking. He wonders if he is wrong, how much he will hurt before Voldemort sends him the way the Dark Lord sent his wife and son.

  


* * *

  


Emory Munoz. Muggleborn.

Jonathon Long. Muggleborn.

Siobhan Kavanagh. Disgraced half-blood.

Manuel Scrivens. Erika Hyland. Lorenza Carideo. Tyler Owen. Theo Carideo. Muggleborns and half-bloods and the occasional disgraced pureblood scion, stolen at a young age, as far as the eye can see. Now in their 20s or early 30s, but none older than 35.

The schools, Lucius thinks dully. All of the oldest hailing from a school which ran an experimental pedagogy for such dirty-blooded children. Lucius cannot remember the details of what it was supposed to be. He does not know if any of them were even involved in it, for none of them have much experience in the theory of educational reforms, if he is to be honest about it. Lucius has only ever asked for information to be censored – he has never really cared how it is done.

To what degree was Voldemort involved in that experiment, he wonders? Did it spread to other schools? What is the curriculum like? What do they teach to these children, who should not matter, but who are flooding the ranks of the lower Death Eaters and petty clerks of the Ministry, who are – Lucius shudders at this realization – slowly being promoted and used to sweep away the nobility, the court, the Ancient and Noble houses who once stood tall amongst the masses. When was the last time he received an invitation to a ball that was not hosted by the government? When was the last time they did anything but sit in a silent buzz of vague anxiety and consume copious amounts of tea?

  


* * *

  


In the end, there is nothing for him to do but go.

  


* * *

  


The manor looks much as it once did, when Lucius lived here. And yet it doesn’t – the floor plan remains unaltered, so that Lucius can tell where he is. But the purposes of individual rooms have clearly changed. Furniture has been replaced and shifted even then, to create a maze that is both solvable and alien to Lucius’ mind. The color scheme is deep, reddish brown almost black and heather gray and emerald green and the occasional bright yellow shining in opalesque fashion. Lucius wonders if this can be used to deduce something about the Dark Lord – anything about the mind of a man such as Voldemort. He tries not to think on it, though, for that way lies madness.

There are bookshelves everywhere. In every room, shelves and shelves of books, of trinkets and little sculptures and doodads and wands in cases and pieces of jewelry so ornate and (sometimes) feminine that Lucius’ mind boggles at the concept of Voldemort owning them. But there they are – on display. It is like a cross between a living space and a library and a museum. Lucius cannot comprehend it.

Lucius makes his way slowly through the maze of sitting rooms, marveling at the near indistinguishability of one room from another, different books and treasures be damned, until finally he reaches a hallway. Now, he hears faint noises in the distance, and he shudders as he remembers the massive cobra that more likely than not stalks these rooms.

At least finding Voldemort will be easy enough. All he has to do is following the hissing.

What was once the Malfoy family ballroom is no longer such. Instead, Voldemort has seen fit to redress the room into a high-ceilinged duelling ground, and yet it also appears to be doing double duty as a ritual room. Lucius feels more than sees the remains of some vast circle scribed onto the ground, and he shudders at the smooth, velvety feel of the black magic laid across the polished floor and seeping into the very grain of the wood.

The cobra is in here. That is both good and bad.

And there is Voldemort. Of course.

He stands tall and black-robed, edged in scarlet red that Lucius knows matches his eyes. Somehow, the feverish thoughts trying to run through his mind overtake him in a moment, and he wonders why they match. Is it a trick, intentionally done to unnerve and draw attention to his eyes? Or is it merely the oldest wardrobe advice in the book? Or does he just like red? Does it remind him of blood?

Voldemort’s back is to Lucius, and Lucius does not know if Voldemort is aware of his presence. He stops and holds still, unwilling to deal with the Dark Lord immediately if he does not have to. Voldemort’s head of black hair is tilted down towards the floor, where the cobra rears up, hood partly spread. Lucius does not know how Voldemort deals with such a display. The cobra makes noises more fit for a growling dog than a hissing snake, and its body is one long, twelve-foot-long, sinuous muscle. Lucius has seen it striking at other Death Eaters, fangs bared and hood spread. He has seen victims writhe in pain after its bite until they go still, their faces partly paralysed and their words muffled and imbecilic as the venom eats at their nerves.

People flinch when it enters a room. People leap away in terror when it strikes at them.

All, that is, but Voldemort, who has never flinched no matter how close it comes to him, who even leans in towards it when it approaches. Voldemort has watched it strike towards him and only stood still, and somehow, he has never been bitten.

Maybe it’s a parselmouth thing.

The cobra is making its growling noises, and Voldemort hisses softly back in sighs and hushed noises that Lucius would almost mistake for a mother calming a child if not for his long experience hearing Parseltongue on the edges of his perception. But it doesn’t last, because the snake’s head swings towards Lucius, its tongue flickering, and Voldemort smoothly pivots on a heel.

“Lucius,” he murmurs. It’s soft, but more than audible in this cavernous, mostly empty room. “I do not recall requiring your presence.”

That’s an excellent point. Why _is_ Lucius here?

He kneels anyway, before he knows what he is going to say, because that is the best thing he can possibly do. “Forgive me, my Lord,” he says, fixing his gaze on Voldemort’s feet. They are bare. Lucius so rarely sees the Dark Lord wearing shoes, even when he is otherwise dressed up in layers and layers of robes and finery, and he has always wondered just what is going through Voldemort’s mind regarding that choice. “I was struck by a question that I wished to pose to you. If this is not a good time I can go.”

There is a soft noise, and Lucius recognizes it belatedly as a chuckle. The feet stride slowly forwards, all languid and fluid. Like a snake, Lucius thinks, and wonders why he only thinks this thought now, and never thought it during that time when Voldemort literally did have scales.

“So presumptuous to interrupt me in my own home, Lucius,” Voldemort murmurs. To his surprise, Lucius has to suppress a flinch and a growl of rage at this statement. He had thought that this little issue had finally ceased to bother him, and yet suddenly he feels again that urge to take his wand to the man before him, the same as he had felt when he realized why Narcissa was lying still on the floor, when he had to listen to the sound of a young voice screaming from the dungeons – and they had never used to have dungeons that actually functioned as dungeons. They had had basements, the Malfoys. They had not had dungeons.

“But I am interested in your question,” Voldemort has gone on. “Speak.”

“My Lord,” Lucius says.

He does not know how to say this.

Perhaps he could, he thinks, as he remembers again that terror that he felt while he cradled Narcissa’s twisted, bloodied corpse and tried not to think on the location of his son. Perhaps the time is now. Perhaps he’s left his kettle out for nothing.

Voldemort does not jump when Lucius leaps to his feet. He does stop walking, and in that moment Lucius’ wand points directly that the Dark Lord’s neck. The blood-letting curse that flies to the tip of his tongue is out the end of his wand even before he says the incantation, and he marvels at how easy was that nonverbal spell.

Voldemort – Lucius isn’t certain what Voldemort does. He does not see the trademark pale wand, but there is a movement of the Dark Lord’s arm, and Lucius’ curse is flung carelessly to the side. Behind Voldemort, the cobra slithers backwards, darting far faster than Lucius is comfortable with towards the walls. He was once practiced with keeping multiple enemies in his awareness at once – but even at that time, those were always humans. He has not truly duelled in a long time, and that is a venomous snake, not a person.

His glance at the snake is costly. He forgot how fast Voldemort can sprint, and now the Dark Lord is nearly upon him. Lucius doesn’t dare to look at Voldemort’s face, afraid that he will be paralysed with fear if he sees whatever cold and deadly expression the man is sporting. Instead he tries to move out of the way of the charge – he’s seen the Dark Lord fight, and he should have an advantage, therefore, over the aurors who were so often mowed down by a charging bolt of smoke and blackness when they tried to follow the instructions of their mentors and hunker down in one protected spot on the battlefield. He does move, but not far enough to the side.

It is surprisingly hard not to just leap backwards when it is a person charging at you, and not an inanimate object. You keep expecting them to stop before they hit you.

Lucius stumbles and gets off one more curse, of flaying skin, before the Dark Lord is upon him. He cannot see if he hit, but he figures, from the sudden pressure on his legs, that he did not even touch the man. His head strikes the floor at the same time as the pressure tightens so close against his legs that they crack into pieces.

Lucius has been cruciated before. He was never able to not scream, though he did manage to hold out for longer each time, as he became more prepared for the sensation of the curse. He is not prepared, though, for the very different sensation that is breaking bones, and he screams as his back arches involuntarily. He comes back to himself with his spine twisted uncomfortably, his legs bent unnaturally, and Voldemort’s foot pressing firmly against his cheek and pinning his head to the floor.

“Goodness. At least make a better assasination attempt, Lucius,” Voldemort is saying. The tip of a wand hovers dangerously near to Lucius’ eyesocket. “You could have done something while my back was turned. I almost feel I should be insulted.”

“You never cared,” Lucius gasps. It is a non-sequitor but it is the only thought in his mind. “You lied to us. You never cared about blood. You just – ”

He does not know how that statement finishes, but it is true.

Voldemort says nothing. The wand continues to hover ominously, before finally it withdraws from Lucius’ field of vision. But he does not get a chance to react, for suddenly a harsh kick to his head is sending him sprawling onto his back, and then with a jerk, he is tugged upwards by his neck. A body-controlling spell. Lucius has never experienced one before, and he finds he quite hates it. His arms fall limp to his sides, unusable – his spine strains at the enforced stiffness of his back.

The Dark Lord stands before Lucius, his fingers curling around his wand, twirling it within his grasp. A familiar enough tic, but only one that Voldemort indulges in when he is relaxed, and feels comfortably in control. Lucius does not know where his wand is, but he wouldn’t be able to reach for it anyway.

The red eyes burn into Lucius’ face. “Perhaps you would care to repeat that, Lucius?” Thin, pale lips curl into an expression that is only shaped like a smile. “For the record.”

“You never cared,” Lucius spits, rage suddenly engulfing him again. “You lied, you didn’t care about restoring blood purity to its proper place, you never cared at all! You lied to us!”

That terrible non-smile remains on Voldemort’s face. For a moment, nothing happens, and then.

Then the Dark Lord throws his head back and _laughs_.

“Oh, Lucius,” he cries between the peals of sound. “I had no idea that you were so intelligent! Your wife figured it out long before you did, and that is why she’s dead.”

Lucius stares dumbly. Voldemort’s hands come together in a slow, mocking clap as his laughter diminishes.

“You’re going to destroy us,” Lucius whispers hollowly.

“Is there anything about you worth saving?” Voldemort asks. He clearly means for it to be rhetorical – he immediately moves on, reaching out to grab Lucius’ hair and tugging his face up until Lucius is certain that his hair is going to be ripped from his scalp. Voldemort’s face is too close, but Lucius cannot force his neck to turn. The Dark Lord’s crimson eyes are flecked with different shades of red, all far darker in color than Lucius expected. There are only a few spots, slivers and specks, which flash as if reflective. Lucius wonders if this is why they sometimes appear to glow.

It’s strange, to sit here, broken-legged and bound and most likely dead within the hour, and yet to have all the time in the world for revelations. If Voldemort is not a savior of blood-purity, if he is not a cultural hero, then – then what is the strength of this magic that they all hoped would serve them? What is the mind behind those red eyes like? What does it dream of? What makes it tick? Who raised this force of nature, did anybody raise him, or did he simply appear in the world, fully formed, an omen of destruction and a natural disaster waiting to happen?

“I have always found it amusing,” Voldemort murmurs, “how foolish wealth can make the adult who was spoiled as a child. Purebloods, all of you, you want your societal dominance and your power and your ambitions so _badly_.” The Dark Lord’s voice is a croon, but with hisses flickering on the edges, transforming the words from intimate to terrifying. “But you never realize that power does not pass through successive generations unless each child fights for it to remain. You grow so soft and foolish. Why – ” and he bares his teeth in a grin that is still nothing like a smile should be “ – to think, Lucius. All these years, bending the knee to a mudblood like me.”

It almost isn’t surprising. “You stole parseltongue,” Lucius says dully, for of course it’s the only explanation – no Slytherin would be a mudblood, of course, the line of Slytherin had become the line of Gaunt, and the last Gaunt had died in the 40s – or was it the 50s? Either way, Voldemort had been alive at that time, most likely – he had found that last Gaunt, surely, had stolen their magical talents.

But he doesn’t get a sickly-sweet confirmation. He gets a thumb directly in his eye socket, and for a moment nothing is real but the pain. That wasn’t magic – that was not magic, it was literally just a thumb stuck in his eye, and of course Lucius should not be surprised that a mudblood would be so barbaric when all the masks and pretensions were dropped.

Voldemort’s voice is even hissier when he speaks again. Lucius can’t see him – his eyes are squeezed shut against the now merely agonising pain from his destroyed eye. He can feel blood and fluids seeping down his cheek.

“My parseltongue talent,” the Dark Lord says shortly, “was a gift from my mother. The Gaunts had a squib daughter, don’t you know? Not that they would have spoken of her.” He laughs, short and breathy. “But of course, squibs aren’t really magical. A squib who has a child with a muggle is nothing remarkable. Surely that child won’t have any magic.”

Lucius does not know if this is true. But he says nothing. His intact eye finally manages to crack open, despite the pain and blood in the other, and he sees that Voldemort is crouching down before him now, and that sensation on his neck is Voldemort’s hand gripping his throat.

“How dear Abraxas hated me,” Voldemort whispers. “Here he is – pampered, spoiled Malfoy boy, come to Hogwarts with years of tutoring and practice wands up his robes, and he is in Slytherin where he is supposed to be, assured of his coming superiority in everything that matters.” The hand on Lucius’ neck tightens, until he finds it hard to breathe. He realizes that he can move his hands only when they fly to Voldemort’s wrist on their own, trying to pry the Dark Lord off of him.

“And there am I,” Voldemort goes on, voice dropping impossibly lower. Yet Lucius still hears. “A threadbare mudblood orphan who should by Abraxas’ judgement be the lowest possible scum of the earth, and yet more magically powerful that he, destroying all his attempts to have the highest grade ranking of all the first years in every house.” The non-smile slides across his face again, all teeth and hot breath, like a predator. “How we hated each other, Lucius. Really, I don’t know if I could describe to you the depths of our animosity, until the moment came when Abraxas woke up one morning and realized how much he wanted to lay with me. Imagine my mirth when I realized!”

It must have been very funny, at least to Voldemort, Lucius thinks. A breathy chuckle falls from the Dark Lord’s lips he bothers to continue.

“Imagine,” Voldemort croons, twisting Lucius’ neck until it feels like it’s about to snap, “how easy it was for me to encourage him to debase himself for me, Lucius. How he _writhed_. But I never did forgive him for his transgressions. Imagine my joy when he allowed me to Mark him – when he brought me his very own son. When that son brought me his son.”

He is not his father, Lucius thinks desperately. Draco was not his grandfather. When Voldemort finally cast the Killing Curse at Lucius’ son, did he even see Draco there? Or was Abraxas’ face superimposed on Draco’s, in Voldemort’s mind?

The grin that has grown on Voldemort’s face is barely human in its wild, manic joy. Lucius squeezes his eyes shut again, unwilling to hear this surreal recounting of a childhood grudge match carried down through generations. This monster that they’ve unintentionally had a hand in creating – he will never be satisfied, Lucius realizes. He will never be sated. It isn’t even revenge anymore. It’s an acquired taste for blood and power, a monster who will eat and eat and take and take until everything is either destroyed or bent to his will. He will drop leprechaun gold to appease the masses and make a pretty picture for those who do not realize what sort of creature they’re interacting with, and he will only show them how wrong they are when it is too late for them to do anything.

Like now. Like what Lucius has just experienced. Voldemort wants to chew the world up and spit the pieces back out to remake it in his image. He is not loyal to anybody but himself. Lucius and the others, they’ve –

They’ve just given it to him. Handed it so willingly, Lucius thinks with numb horror, on a crystal platter.

Lucius has no more time to think, because there is a thumb in his good eye. Or rather, what was once his good eye. It is worse, this time, which doesn’t seem right until he realizes that Voldemort is moving his thumb in circles inside Lucius’ very skull. With that realization, he also realizes that he is shrieking uncontrollably.

Finally the foreign intrusion leaves, and he can breathe enough to form some kind of coherent statement. He wants to scream at Voldemort for all he’s done and ruined, but all that drops from his mouth is “_stop stop stop please stop_”.

“My mistake.” Voldemort’s voice is close to Lucius’ ear. He thinks he can feel the other man’s breath on his skin. “You closed your eyes, Lucius. Whyever would you do that if you weren’t done seeing?” A chuckle drops at the end of the question, nearly unnoticeable but for how close their faces must be. The sadistic bastard knows, he knows that isn’t what Lucius intended at all.

“give it back,” he hears himself saying. “my son, my wife, my manor, you monster, give them _back_ – ”

“Make me,” Voldemort says. There is a glitter in his voice that tells Lucius that he is smiling madly still. “Oh, but you can’t. You powerless little pureblood idiot.”

Finally, the hand around Lucius’ neck loosens its grip. But Lucius is no longer being held up by a spell, either, and so he crashes to the floor in a painful jolt to legs and teeth. He scrabbles around and tries to wipe some of the viscera from his cheeks, but the slimy sensation of his own eye fluids beneath his fingers is too much to bear. He barely holds back a retch, and stops trying.

Can’t walk. Can’t see. He doesn’t know where Voldemort is, either. The man could be anywhere.

There’s a growling hiss from far too close, and a faint flickering of a tongue across the bridge of his nose. Lucius shrieks, the noise involuntary, and throws himself reflexively away from the deadly snake that is right there. It’s right there and he can’t see it.

“Oh, Lucius,” says Voldemort. A foot plants itself on his shoulder and forces him to the floor. With his ear against the wood, Lucius can now hear with some clarity the slow shifting of scales from quite close by. It’s a sound he truly wishes he could never hear again. “It brings me such joy to see you groveling and cowering before me. But all good things must come to an end to make way for the better – isn’t that what they say?”

He can’t see anything at all, yet Lucius knows with dim, blank certainty, that a pale, bone-white wand is being pointed at him. Perhaps between his ruined eyes, or at his exposed neck.

“_Avada Ke_ – ” is all he hears. He does not know if it cuts off because the spell leaped forth before Voldemort could even finish the incantation, or if Lucius’ heart stopped itself moments before Voldemort murdered him, to try and have one last moment of victory – the only victory that a Malfoy would ever have been able to hold over Voldemort in perpetuity.

It could be either. But very quickly, it does not matter which it is.

(What have they done?)

**Author's Note:**

> I've always thought of Voldemort as somebody who didn't care about what ideology he was espousing, as long as it fed his goals. Blood purism was never anything more than a convenient fiction until he could replace it with reverence for his very self. "There is only power and those too weak to seek it" sure isn't that compatible with the intrinsic-virtue concept of blood purism.
> 
> Also, he's a petty little shit, the kind of guy who plotted revenge on his schoolhood bullies for his entire life, and visited their sins upon the children, too. He would absolutely get a magnificent rush from watching self-important purebloods bow to an individual who they would otherwise cast aside as useless.


End file.
